"So busy talking, you mean," laughed Wally. "Terrible chatterboxes, Jim and Norah; they never get any work done." A blacklead brush hurtled across the room: he caught it neatly and returned it to the owner.

"But you're working terribly hard," said the cook-lady, in bewilderment. "Is any one going to live here?"

Norah explained briefly. Miss de Lisle listened with interest, nodding her head from time to time.

"It's a beautiful idea," she said at length. "Fancy now, you rescuing those poor little children and their father and mother! It makes me feel quite sentimental. Most cooks are sentimental, you know: it's such a--a warm occupation," she added vaguely. "When I'm cooking something that requires particular care I always find myself crooning a love song!" At which Wally collapsed into such a hopeless giggle that Jim and Norah, in little better case themselves, looked at him in horror, expecting to see him annihilated. To their relief, Miss de Lisle grinned cheerfully.

"Oh, yes, you may laugh!" she said--whereupon they all did. "I know I don't look sentimental. Perhaps it's just as well; n.o.body would want a cook with golden hair and languishing blue eyes. And I do cook so much better than I sing! Now I'm going to help. What can I do?"

"Indeed, you're not," said Norah. "Thanks ever so, Miss de Lisle, but we can manage quite well."

"Now, you're thinking of what I said the other day," said Miss de Lisle disgustedly. "I know I did say my province was cooking, and nothing else. But if you knew the places I've struck. Dear me, there was one place where the footman chucked me under the chin!"

It was too much for the others. They sat down on the floor and shrieked in unison.

"Yes, I know it's funny," said Miss de Lisle. "I howled myself, after it was all over. But I don't think the footman ever chucked any one under the chin again. I settled him!" There was a reminiscent gleam in her eye: Norah felt a flash of sympathy for the hapless footman.

"Then there was another house--that was a duke's--where the butler expected me to walk out with him. That's the worst of it: if you behave like a human being you get that sort of thing, and if you don't you're a pig, and treated accordingly." She looked at them whimsically. "Please don't think me a pig!" she said. "I--I shall never forget how you held the door open for me, Mr. Jim!"

"Oh, I say, don't!" protested the unhappy Jim, turning scarlet.

"Now you're afraid I'm going to be sentimental, but I'm not. I'm going to polish the boards in the pa.s.sage, and then you can give me another job. Lunch is cold to-day: I've done all the cooking. Now, please don't--" as Norah began to protest. "Dear me, if you only knew how nice it is to speak to some one again!" She swooped upon Wally's tin of floor-polish, scooped half of its contents into the lid with a hair-pin, commandeered two cloths from a basketful of cleaning matters, and strode off. From the pa.s.sage came a steady pounding that spoke of as much "elbow-grease" as polish being applied.

"Did you ever!" said Jim weakly.

"Never," said Wally. "I say, I think she's a good sort."

"So do I. But who'd have thought it!"

"Poor old soul!" said Norah. "She must be most horribly dull. But after our first day I wouldn't have dared to make a remark to her unless she'd condescended to address me first."

"I should think you wouldn't," said Wally. "But she's really quite human when she tucks her claws in."

"Oh, my aunt!" said Jim, chuckling. "I'd give a month's pay to have seen the footman chuck her under the chin!" They fell into convulsions of silent laughter.

From the pa.s.sage, as they regained composure, came a broken melody, punctuated by the dull pounding on the floor. Miss de Lisle, on her knees, had become sentimental, and warbled as she rubbed.

_"'I do not ask for the heart of thy heart.'"_

"Why wouldn't you?" murmured Wally, with a rapt expression. "Any one who can make pikelets like you----"

"Be quiet, Wally," grinned Jim. "She'll hear you."

"Not she--she's too happy. Listen."

_"'All that I a-a-sk for is all that may be, All that thou ca-a-a-rest to give unto me!

I do not ask'"----_

Crash! Bang! Splash!

"Heavens, what's happened!" exclaimed Jim.

They rushed out. At the end of the pa.s.sage Miss de Lisle and the irreproachable Allenby struggled in a heap--in an ever-widening pool of water that came from an overturned bucket lying a yard away. The family rushed to the rescue. Allenby got to his feet as they arrived, and dragged up the drenched cook-lady. He was pale with apprehension.

"I--I--do beg your pardon, mum!" he gasped. "I 'adn't an idea in me 'ead there was any one there, least of all you on your knees. I just come backin' out with the bucket!"

"I say, Miss de Lisle, are you hurt?" Jim asked anxiously.

"Not a bit, which is queer, considering Allenby's weight!" returned Miss de Lisle. "But it's--it's just t-too funny, isn't it!" She broke into a shout of laughter, and the others, who had, indeed, been choking with repressed feeling, followed suit. Allenby, after a gallant attempt to preserve the correct demeanour of a butler, unchanged by any circ.u.mstance, suddenly bolted into the kitchen like a rabbit. They heard strange sounds from the direction of the sink.

"But, I say, you're drenched!" said Jim, when every one felt a little better.

Miss de Lisle glanced at her stained and dripping overall.

"Well, a little. I'll take this off," she said, suiting the action to the word, and appearing in a white blouse and grey skirt which suited her very much better than the roseate garment. "But my floor! And I had it so beautifully polished!" she raised her voice. "Allenby!

What are you going to do about this floor?"

"Indeed, mum, I've made a pretty mess of it," said Allenby, reappearing.

"You have, indeed," said she.

"But I never expected to find you 'ere a-polishin'," said the bewildered ex-sergeant.

"And I certainly never expected to find the butler scrubbing!"

retorted Miss de Lisle; at which Allenby's jam dropped, and he cast an appealing glance at Jim.

"This is a working-bee," said Jim promptly. "We're all in it, and no one else knows anything about it."

"Not Mrs. Atkins, I hope, sir," said Allenby.

"Certainly not. As for Sarah, she's out of it altogether."

Allenby sighed, a relieved butler.

"I'll see to the floor, sir," he said. "It's up to me, isn't it? And polish it after. I can easy slip down 'ere for a couple of hours after lunch, when you're all out ridin'."

"Then I really had better fly," said Miss de Lisle. "I am pretty wet, and there's lunch to think about." She looked at them in friendly fashion. "Thank you all very much," she said--and was gone, with a kind of elephantine swiftness.

The family returned to the dining-room, leaving Allenby to grapple with the swamp in the pa.s.sage.

"Don't we have cheery adventures when we clean house!" said Wally happily. "I wouldn't have missed this morning for anything."

"No--it _has_ been merry and bright," Jim agreed. "And isn't the cook-lady a surprise-packet! I say, Nor, do you think you'd find a human side to Mrs. Atkins if we let Allenby fall over her with a bucket of water?"

"'Fraid not," said Norah.

"You can't find what doesn't exist," said Wally wisely. "Mrs. Atkins is only a walking cruet--sort of mixture of salt and vinegar."

They told the story to Mr. Linton over the luncheon-table, after Allenby had withdrawn. Nevertheless, the butler, listening from his pantry to the shouts of laughter from the morning-room, had a fairly good idea of the subject under discussion, and became rather pink.